So the Jets are having to make the arduous trip away to notorious fly-blown third world hellhole err... London. This is not a venture to be undertaken lightly. Who knows what might happen to such sensitive souls when they have to brave the rigours of staying in a 5 star hotel in such a hostile environment for a whole 65 hours ? Thankfully, the team management are alive to the dangers and they're leaving nothing to chance. 350 rolls of toilet paper are being shipped out in advance. I mean, everybody knows you can't wipe your arse in a 5 star London hotel right ?

This is a great story on many levels, but what particularly interests me is not only that they're so ignorant as to think this is necessary, but that they're sending so much. A party of 220 people staying for 3 days needs 350 rolls ? That's one and a half full rolls each. Exactly how many times do these guys need to take a crap ?

I was watching the game when they made mention of that or did I read it?, either way, I remember thinking this TP issue was as stupid as I have ever heard. OK, if you have a game in Iraq, you might want to take no chances but London?

Now, I have never been to London. Let me make a giant assumption that their toilet paper is not quite as nice as the players are used to. But it's a couple of days only, even if I had to use the worst quality paper, it's only two days! (and that's assuming something that is likely not even true!). If I were in London, I would take this as a slap in the face. The NFL itself is doing so much to make the "brand" attractive all over the world and here we have a stupid thing done by one team that could ruin much of what the league has done!

We just found it funny. All it does is play to the extant stereotype of Americans knowing nothing about the wider world (which is believed by almost everybody in Europe no matter how unfair it may be).

Quality of toilet paper can vary depending on where you stay of course, but the sort of hotel the Jets would be staying in would have the good stuff, of that you can be sure. The logistics guy probably based his planning on gramps' war stories or something.

So the Jets are having to make the arduous trip away to notorious fly-blown third world hellhole err... London. This is not a venture to be undertaken lightly. Who knows what might happen to such sensitive souls when they have to brave the rigours of staying in a 5 star hotel in such a hostile environment for a whole 65 hours ? Thankfully, the team management are alive to the dangers and they're leaving nothing to chance. 350 rolls of toilet paper are being shipped out in advance. I mean, everybody knows you can't wipe your arse in a 5 star London hotel right ?

This is a great story on many levels, but what particularly interests me is not only that they're so ignorant as to think this is necessary, but that they're sending so much. A party of 220 people staying for 3 days needs 350 rolls ? That's one and a half full rolls each. Exactly how many times do these guys need to take a crap ?

Well, yeah. I figured they would have already had the crap beaten out of them before this, so there wouldn't be much need. Maybe they were going to "paper" Buckingham Palace after the game? Too bad they were not monogrammed to hand out to ticket holders. Think of the symbolism: "Be prepared for a bunch more crap." or "See! We Americans are good for SOMETHING. We make great toilet paper!" And they make great streamers, too!

Maybe this should have been a clue as to how the game would play out, it really was one crappy game! I feel bad for the fans who may not be as "into" American Football as those back here, they experienced one BAD game!

There's actually a small but surprisingly well-informed community of NFL fans in this country. A couple of my mates are among them. One supports the 49ers and the other supports the Lions and they went down together when their respective teams were playing in London. What the NFL bigwigs who dream of a London franchise possibly don't understand is that almost all of the fans who turn up up at Wembley already have a team that they support. Some of them will support the Jets or whatever, but most will only be going along because they've been following NFL for years and this is their only halfway affordable opportunity to see a game live. If there were a London franchise then it's very doubtful that these fans would switch their allegiance, that's not how we roll over here. What would happen is that fans would be going along to support the opposition or treating it in the exact same way they treat the current games (a chance to watch a sport they love in a neutral capacity). The difference would be that there'd be 8 games a year as opposed to 3, so the support would be spread much more thinly.

I have to disagree as far as fans switching their allegiances. Certainly you will not convert all fans, but most would switch. I see it all the time here in the USA, a few friends have moved and all of them still actively follow the Buffalo Bills, they all consider themselves fans of the new local teams where they live.

You certainly can stay informed on any team but when your market has a team, you can see that team play, you see their game on TV every week (as opposed to the hit or miss viewing of any other team), you are reading more about the local team, you have a built in allegiance with a local team, You are exposed to merchandising for the local team, radio and tv talk is more about the local team, most of your friends will be fans of the local team, it goes on and on.

My brother was living in Charlotte NC when they started up the panthers (what about 20 or so years ago now?) a new franchise in an new market. Being from the US, EVERYONE had a favorite team there (mostly Atlanta) but the vast majority switched over and became rabid followers. I don't know if London would ever get to that "rabid" fan status, but all the NFL needs is fans to support the team and that's enough.

Just last week I was reading how the NFL is going to look to more foreign markets in the coming years, Mexico City is a really big fan base already and could quite possibly support a team, I think the Japanese and Koreans are really into "Americana" and are interested in the game and the whole warrior aspect of the game (huge men, "armor", hard hitting, etc) Australia has some followers and even a few players in the league hail from down under. It could get interesting to see how the league nurtures this in the future.

Trust me Tom, American sports fans are VERY different where club loyalties are concerned. Over here it's a cardinal sin to change your team, something that very few people ever do and when they do all their mates give them abuse about it. The idea of simply dropping your team and supporting another when you move to a new city is anathema to sports fans here, you simply don't do that kind of thing. Likewise, teams don't up sticks and move to a different town where the crowds might be bigger. It's happened once in professional football in my lifetime, when Wimbledon moved to Milton Keynes and became MK Dons. MK are hated by all right thinking football fans to this day and known disparagingly as Franchise FC.

That's because your entire nation is the size of many states here, you have dozens of teams within a few miles of one another so a move is hardly an issue. Hell, you can move from one side of the island to the other and still have a do-able drive to watch a game in person. For me to drive to a game in California would take 3 days driving 15 hours a day. Philadelphia is relatively close to me, that's a six hour drive. So switching teams is more accepted here.

And this goes to the same point, you are comparing clubs that are so close together. You DO get plenty of news about most teams. Here it's about the local team mostly, others are secondary. Get yourself an NFL team and suddenly that changes. The talked about team is your local team, why would you be getting much talk about a team in California or Texas? Or hell, even in New York (or New ENGLAND?).

I understand the culture of sticking with your teams and that would certainly play some role in not getting as many fans as the NFL may like. But we have that here as well, people move and stay true to their teams. Take for example my daughter in San Diego, we visited during Football season and had to go with her to the local Bills Bar, it was insane, they were more into the game than any place out here, expats from Western New York now living in San Diego all tied to their team even more-so now that they are so far from home. And walking down the streets I saw pretty much every jersey you could imagine, and they all have local bars catering to those teams as well. Same thing here, we have plenty of other team bars who specialize in showing the Steelers or the Dolphins or Cowboys or packers, Bears, Eagles....

If London got herself a team, fans WOULD switch. Not all, not a chance! But enough and the switch would happen more and more over time, take a fan of say Seattle in London. Good the past few years, they will no doubt go through a bad time soon enough, a bad team gets less and less said about them, they are featured in fewer and fewer games that are televised, all while this fan in London is hearing all about their local team, they can go to a game or three, more and more people are talking about them, no,that Seahawks fan is going to change eventually, it will happen, I have no doubt about that in my mind! (or at least a large number of them will I should say) Plus, once the new team comes in, it's only natural to now follow the NEW team.

and I know a lot of people who follow your silly kick ball game over here, I doubt they would easily switch team allegiance HOWEVER, if you started a team nearby, I can guarantee most would switch if that were the case. Even New York or Philadelphia ...5 hour drives, they would switch! I don't know when it might get to be too far to care? But a team in this country playing in your premier league, I gotta think anywhere, even a team in California very well might become their new favorite? But a team that is a close distance for an overnight trip, no doubt about it, you have new fans!

Again, you don't understand the depth of the tribalism involved over here. It's really not the same at all. Nothing to do with the sport, it's just the nature of the sports fans.

I don't doubt the London franchise could eventually build up a fanbase of its own, but it would have to come from new fans or casuals who watch the sport without having any kind of attachment to an existing team. The idea that mass numbers of NFL fans over here would simply ditch their existing team and support a London team instead is a fantasy. They might go along to watch the London team every now and then, but they wouldn't just switch across to supporting them. That's not how it works over here.